A Blizzard in Ravenloft

Azeroth and Sanctuary are full of war, death, and demons. Surely, the Demiplane of Terror can't be worse?

Heroes from across the worlds have been captured and killed in Ravenloft. Some have managed to escape, bringing tales of vampires, liches, strange medical experiments and nightmarish personalities back to their homes. But now the Dark Powers have plucked warriors from embattled worlds to play with. Will the heroes fall before the dark horrors, or will the Mists of Ravenloft choke on what they have swallowed?

If you are interested in joining, I am tinkering with a potential multi-party mechanic that will have one campaign going on, with different groups doing different adventures. If you are interested, drop me a message, and I will get back to you. Main focus at present is on characters from either Azeroth (Warcraft) or Sanctuary (Diablo) but that does not exclude everyone else. I am currently hoping for everyone to have two characters available to run, not always at same time (more like back-ups.) Anything happening RL will be dramatized then summarized in the Adventure Log.

Rules and Balancing Issues:

A lot of game developers work really hard to make sure their systems are balanced. That’s great. Much appreciated. But myself, I am less concerned about balance at the game table. While it still is a concern (i.e. if one PC ends up single-handedly completing every challenge that’s an issue,) it takes a back seat to the story. That said, the game world itself will naturally react to imbalance. To use an MMORPG term, the more powerful a character , the more aggro they attract, as monsters will quickly learn who the real powerhouse is. This is true in non-combat situations as well – if one character seems particularly powerful, the npcs will react much differently, for good or for ill.

That said, if someone wants to run something based on the PHB, I would suggest the Pathfinder RPG beta test rules. They have the same basic flavour, but some things are tighter, and some things make sense. I actually like the fact that wizards can cast their cantrips repeatedly all day, instead of still only being able to cast four at level 20. The pathfinder characters are a little more powerful, so they would use the alternate leveling system in their book (see character advancement) in the fast path. They do not have rules on psionics as of yet, so use standard 3.5 rules for that.

Any D20 rulesset is to a given point, acceptable, so long as the power level is on par with levels 1-3 at the moment. If you really want to run a Mutants and Masterminds char, you can, but PL 1`s are never fun to play. I can do some conversions on the fly, and am willing to work with players so they get something close the PCs they want, without kerploding the game world.

However, no DBZ. Ever. I had one experience with a DBZ char in high school, and I`ve always regretted allowing it.

Character Creation:

To begin with, ECL will be 1. Stats can be made by 32 point buy, or 4d6 drop lowest, re-roll ones. It is up to you either way. The dice seem to end up with higher stats under this system, but it is no guarantee. Either way, your total modifiers should equal +4 or high. If not, rebuild.

Advancement:

I will be handing out experience generally after the end of an encounter, or the end of a short adventure. If at any time, experience is given out and you have enough to level, that is when the levelling will take place. A minor caveat to this is that if you wish to multi-class, either into another base or into a prestige class, there has to either be a period of training under a suitable teacher, or a predisposition to that class. For example: A wizard could mult-class into archmage if they met the requirements, as there is a predisposition. But that same wizard could not suddenly add a level of monk, paladin, fighter, etc. unless there was some inclination before hand (improved unarmed strike feat/time spent in monestary, training under a paladin/extreme roleplayed devotion to a deity, an exotic weapon feat or general combat feats)

If you level in the middle of a dungeon and wish to multiclass it must be approved. However, if you are in a city when you multi-class and are not in the middle of an adventure, you can multi-class into whatever the hell you like(when meeting prerequisites), as it is assumed you could find a trainer and have time to learn.

Storylines:

I`m altering the storylines of domains and dark lords and such. Two reasons for this: 1) Plenty of us have absorbed enough Ravenloft stuff in the past to know exactly the storyline behind some notable NPCs (I`m looking at you, Lord of Barovia) so this hopefully will help keep it a little fresh. 2) Since I`ve altered what domains are in the core some storylines do not make sense.

I`m thinking potentially two adventuring guilds will be involved – One has been established but not named, near the village of Barrow`s Edge. Another one has not been established at all. the Barrow`s Edge guild is RL, so I had have to discuss that with the players that were involved. The other one will be established by the first people to get back to me.

Real Life getting in way of gaming! GRRRR! have more stuff though out in head, may have more rl players as well. Arge, may pm you. atm, all players are people I know rl, so we can do both online and rl gaming.

gotta get going to bed so I can get up tomorrow and get ready for work (again.) I’m working on a seperate writing project as well, but it dovetails nicely and may be able to incorporate ideas into both.

www.thechosenchronicles.com – great book, read it!! I’m working up a D20 proposal based off of this book (may not fly, we’ll see) It actually has some really good Ravenloft style flair.